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Sunday, July 28, 2013

Carving Rubber Stamps

Back on the 18th, I took a trip to CREATE Mixed Media Retreat in Somerset, NJ with my friend Linda. I signed up for a stamp carving class and Linda took a jewelry workshop. I wanted to learn stamp carving with the hope that I could somehow transfer the skill to my beads and pottery.

The first thing Julie (our teacher) had us do was carve a heart. She gave us some tips and tricks for carving curved lines. My heart turned out okay. I wasn't super impressed by myself but then again, it was the first stamp I had carved in a few years.

We had a full class of 24-25 students and I was the ONLY jewelry person in the bunch.

I realized after carving the jellyfish stamp in class, that these would not be deep enough to press into the clay. However, he would look really cute on my "thank you" tags that I send with my orders.

As you can see in the photo above, I've been playing around with some other designs. Stamp carving is VERY addictive.

AJE contributer Karen Totten, suggested I take my carving skills and carve some stamps out of clay and bisque-fire them. Why didn't I think of that?!? They'll be deeper and then I can press them directly into the wet clay. I'm also planning to carve more rubber stamps and then turn the prints into decals which can be fired on to my pendants.

The wheels are turning! I feel inspired again and that makes this workshop worth every penny.Diana P.Suburban Girl Studio LLC

Way back, in High School, we started carving on linoleum. I loved it, but kind of forgot how much fun it was with all the other artforms that I tried. When I started making my own stamps, I remembered how much fun carving was, and the stamps are so much easier than the lino...